Is there anything new on the old subject of cloning SSD to (older) HDD for the purpose of backup?

Just now I've installed a trial version of AOEMEI which I thought was totally free.

I haven't done this in a while and the DVD drive that I run the executable of older progs seemed to load slow or not at all. How can I check for good disk to disk transfer for GPT vs MBR file types etc.?
I've reformatted one of the old HDDs to get a clean start. I used HDDGuru Low Level Formatter to get that disk prepared then ran Simple Format in Win10

Also what is a good method to upgrade my old DVD source drive to a dedicated bootable USB?

Thanks for any replies for free commercial clone progs. I've tried Clozezilla and Linux shell cloners and never had any success with less than a fully ready program for the casual non-Linux user.

Well whatever the trial was for the AOMEI it did not activate and just showed pop-ups to buy and get the activation code needed. So no success so far..

I switched over to Acronis True Image I had from years ago on CD.
That ran ok to completion When I removed the source disk to test bootup on the new clone all I get is the throbber going forever at the
Win10 logo. No helpful information given. I suspect it's doing a disk check -- long version- for whatever reason but I don't know.
Acronis copied my small SSD boot drive pretty quickly so why would this wiped, clone HDD be hung up? (I didn't want to make a fresh question on this so apologies if I should have.)

After a couple hours (yes this should have gotten done for a small SSD) I'll run the repair disk and reinstall MBR as I've done countless times before.
The disk activity seems random like actually looking at data but you can get dizzy looking at that red light.

not really sure what your goal here is. If you want to just backup the SSD, just do it to a disk image. If you want to boot the old HDD that has been written with the SSD clone, then maybe you have the BIOS settings wrong? such as legacy. otherwise more info on what you are doing, and your process. also possible that your old image has drivers in there loading and crashing windows. But not sure exactly what you are doing and why

Success.
Reviewing all the steps I'd screw it up but the clone backup made with Acronis True Image I had on DVD finally opened up. Maybe the answer on this one was to boot the new HDD as an only. I never knew how to make images. It always confused me. That was certainly the case with the favorite program... I'll see if I can find it... "Macrium." The new clone ran Win10 repair directly and that cleaned up any conflict problems and set up Win10.

If I use RUFUS can I get my USB stick (very small) to boot as 'only' and transfer my Acronis onto that from the ISO on disk. MBR etc would be the same.